Nicole Atkins has had quite the journey over the last few years. The New Jersey native, who now takes up residence in Nashville, is most known for her 1950’s style crooning and big influences from classic artists like Roy Orbison, The Ronettes, The Beach Boys, and Mama Cass of the Mamas and the Papas. And her early records certainly do represent those influences in the best way.
But Nicole’s life changed in a big way in early 2017 when she moved to Nashville with her husband and quickly spiraled into a deep, dark place. She had gone to rehab for alcoholism and, at first, struggled to make new music. Then, she had a breakthrough. She would capture her struggle and anxieties about living in a new place and communicate it through an alter ego, Rhonda Lee. With her fourth studio record, Goodnight Rhonda Lee, Nicole opened her heart and allowed raw heartache to elevate her art to a new level. Tracks like “A Little Crazy” bring combine her early influences with a bluesy sensibility and vulnerability not unlike late Johnny Cash records while “Brokedown Luck” toys with funkier songs and tongue-in-cheek lyrics.
Now, Nicole is looking forward to what comes next. We caught up with her over the phone while she and her band are on tour in the Midwest. You can hear Nicole Atkins on Spotify, purchase her records at any major music outlet, and check out some of her art on her website here.
Thanks so much for taking the time to chat today, especially while you’re on tour and everything. You’re opening for the Wood Brothers right now – how’s that going?
Nicole Atkins: Really fun! I’ve opened for them before. It’s really easy. They’re really sweet people; the crowds are nice. I wish it was summertime. It’s a lot to drive through the snowy Midwest.
Oh, I bet. I imagine you’re used to performing for different types of crowds all the time. I know you opened for the Avett Brothers earlier this year and will be hitting the road with Spoon next month.
Nicole Atkins: We open for all kinds – so many different types of bands, which is good because we don’t really stick to one style.
That’s so true. I saw that you semi-recently posted a Lizzo quote on Instagram about how genre is dead.
Nicole Atkins: I mean, it is dead. If you want music to change in a vault, you have to take all the styles that have been before you and mix it all up. It’s how music gets made.
That’s so funny you mention that, because that’s what I wanted to start talking about. I love how your music is this amalgamation of places you’ve lived and sounds you love. New Jersey and Asbury Park are clearly very important to you, but I also detect beachy and tropical sounds and melodies a la the Beach Boys in your music. Then there’s the occasional soulful and bluesy guitar riff that’s very connected to Nashville. So, for you, how conscious are all these influences in your writing? Do you purposely draw from your surroundings when writing, or is it all just a by-product of your process?
Nicole Atkins: You know what, it’s weird, but I’ve never made a sound or melody or style that I’m into at that exact moment. I feel like things come to me after I’ve been experiencing them. When I get an idea for a song, I’ll just have a melody come to me out of no wonder. They’re like little song gifts, mostly in the middle of the night, or sometimes in my dreams. I’ll sing them into my phone and I won’t get a lot of the influences until after the song is done. I’ll think, or that part sounds like King Tubby, who is a reggae singer. And this other part will sound like Mina, an Italian singer who we listened to when we were out on the road out in [Italy]. It’s almost like my brain is catching up with what I’ve been doing over the last few years via song.
So I guess it really is innate. You’re like a sponge soaking up your surroundings and then it ends up coming out in the music.
Nicole Atkins: Yeah, I do a lot. I don’t like to get bored. Whenever anybody says, let’s go here, I’m like yeah! I’m always down to do whatever, go anywhere, talk to anybody. I like to learn stuff and be surprised by where I go and who I meet. I’m always on the hunt to find something to get into. The inspiration hunt.
I feel like that really comes across in your music. I’ve read about how the writing process and time leading up to recording your last record “Goodnight Rhonda Lee” in 2017 was a little tumultuous for you personally, but resulted in this incredibly raw, vulnerable, and beautiful album all around. How would you compare your life now to how you were feeling then?
Nicole Atkins: Oh my God, it’s like ying and yang. It’s like totally – I was saying to my friend: all of my records before this one have been written in a place of struggle. But this new one is written in a place of thriving. It’s a very different record. The backup singers were saying this record makes them want to smoke cigarettes at their parents’ house and sing into their hairbrush. It’s very, very fun and very female – unapologetically so.
That’s great. Do you feel like you have enough of a distance between the place you were in then to now, or is it difficult to play the more vulnerable tracks on the record live?
Nicole Atkins: No, it’s [not too difficult]. I can go there. I always feel very connected to that side of it, but I don’t have to dwell in it. I don’t have to live through it again. It’s a side of me that’s always there and I acknowledge it. I feel like, if you go through life and everything’s fine all the time, there’s no struggle. What can you can get out of that? I feel very fortunate for my struggle in a way, ‘cause it just shows you what you can get through. If you can overcome alcoholism and depression – a myriad of things that people go through – cause it’s life. The best part is coming out the other side of it.
I think you’re a good example of someone who’s bottled their struggle and transformed it into this beautiful art that other people can enjoy and experience it alongside you as a way of catharsis.
Nicole Atkins: You get one life. It’s all up to you with what you do with it. People change. Change is possible with people.
Definitely. Speaking of art, I’m always fascinated by musicians who delve into other art forms, so I’d love to hear you talk about your own art which you sell at some of your shows and on your website. Where does the inspiration or ideas behind your painting come from? Does it come from the same place as music, or is it different?
Nicole Atkins: Music is more, I guess, it’s a little more serious to me. Playing and writing music with other people is fun, but drawing – it can just be anything. It’s more like, I can pick up two colors and [think] what do the colors dictate to me? What do they want to be? My guitar player Steven, he makes collages and says he just reads the tea leaves. It’s like a form of meditation.
Your pieces really are abstract and sometimes I look at them, and in a weird way, I think, this painting looks the way her music sounds.
Nicole Atkins: Yeah, it’s like when you think something, it becomes something to you. But when you put it out in the public, it becomes something else to them in their life. And that’s the connection. And that’s my biggest goal, just to connect to other people.
What are you most looking forward to with 2020 just around the corner? Are you currently writing, or have more plans for touring? What can fans look forward to next year?
Nicole Atkins: So much. I’m always writing. I love writing with other people, it’s a great way to get to know people. It’s funny, when I meet new people in Nashville and they say, let’s get coffee; I say, let’s write a song and we’ll drink coffee. I’m not really good sitting in a chair with a stranger. I like to do stuff, and you get a takeaway from it. I’m mostly looking forward to playing this record live with my band and figuring out how to make every show as much fun as possible for everyone who’s there. And getting better at it.
Do you feel like – for some performers or some writers – it seems the most creativity happens in the studio and then touring can feel like they’re going through the motions. Do you find that the creative process keeps going for you when you’re performing?
Nicole Atkins: It definitely keeps going, more so. I consider myself, first and foremost, an entertainer. Every night is different and we interact with the crowd so much. We have a slow-dancing contest and we’ll have little bits where we talk to people and get into the crowd. That’s the most fun part, playing off everyone who’s there. They’re just as important to the show as we are.
What band or artists are you listening to right now that are either influencing you, or artists who you think are doing something really cool?
Nicole Atkins: I listen to a lot of Jose Gonzalez just because love his voice; it makes me really calm. And I saw the band The Hives a few times last year. It was really inspiring. [Hives’ lead singer Pelle Almqvist] is such a show man and such a great frontperson. You see the band play and they’re so energetic and engaging. You feel so present and you think, oh god we’re never going to die. And then seeing Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds live – it’s so engaging. Mostly I’ve been so obsessed with seeing artists perform live and how they engage with the crowd almost like a PT Barnum circus. That’s what I’m most interested in right now: the show and all the emotions that come through in a song. Like, if I’m singing a ballad about something heavy, I go there fully. If it’s something about kicking a girl’s ass, I go there even though I’m not gonna kick somebody’s ass. It’s almost like a play.
Yes, like each song kind of allows you to take on a different persona, which makes sense because Rhonda Lee was a pseudo-persona for you at some point.
Nicole Atkins: I think everything in our life [can be] a persona. Like when you’re a teenage goth kid, that’s a persona. It’s finding something that they can connect to that they can express themselves through. Like when I was in the 4th grade, it was pro wrestling. And you take all those little things and it becomes part of you in the present. Like, thinking about how crazy and extreme the Ultimate Warrior was in WWF wrestling, I bring a bit of that onstage. Like right now, I have a cold and the hour that I’m up on stage, I have to get through it. So I harness the power of the warrior. *laughs*
You say that you’re always writing, so I’m curious if there’s something you’ve written recently that, after you put it together, it made you realize that this could really be something or kick off a whole new record or really excited you.
Nicole Atkins: There’s this one song that I wrote with my friend Carl [Broemel] from My Morning Jacket when I first moved to Nashville. I had it in my phone and it was kind of Roy Orbison-y sounding. I played it for Carl and he started playing these Radiohead-like chords under it and completely transformed it. And I started pacing around the studio and freestyling and singing the vocal melodies and the guitar licks and singing it, like going into a trance. When you’re in that trance, it’s like, okay I’m in it, this is gonna be a song. Then when I was listening to it later, we said, what is this music? Oh, it’s the Beatles and Roy Orbison and Radiohead and Blur all combined, which makes sense. This is me. When I make a song, it’s gonna reflect everything I like, not just one thing.
That’s amazing. I feel like that’s honestly so hard for artists. They’ll say, I grew up with these three artists and I would love to emulate them and then they’ll spend their whole careers trying to do that.
Nicole Atkins: Yeah, you have to be yourself. There already was a Judy Garland and there’s already a Led Zeppelin. It’s about taking your influences and taking something that they taught you to make it fully yourself.
